{"id":2717,"date":"2011-09-28T01:09:22","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T07:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2011-09-28T01:09:22","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T07:09:22","slug":"ruling-elites-their-disdain-for-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2717","title":{"rendered":"Ruling Elites & Their Disdain for Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic. (“Too Much of a Good Thing:\u00a0 Why we need less democracy”<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What a novel approach to governance.\u00a0 Instead of allowing the people, through their elected representatives to\u00a0make laws, why\u00a0not set up “depoliticized\u00a0commissions”<\/em> (as if there is such an animal) to avoid the mess of democracy?\u00a0\u00a0While\u00a0the above statement could have been spoken by any\u00a0number of people,\u00a0would it surprise you to know that it was President Obama’s former\u00a0Director of the\u00a0Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag?\u00a0 What exactly is Mr. Orszag saying, really?\u00a0 Perhaps that\u00a0Executives, including the President and his Administration, would much rather work through\u00a0“less democratic”<\/em> means, including avoiding Congress, in order to be able to enact legislative policies that would help “to solve the serious problems facing our country.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

With all of the gridlock in Washington, D.C., there is a desire to find a quick fix for what supposedly ails the country.\u00a0 According to Mr. Orszag, radical changes, which\u00a0would counter the gridlock and put Congress in its place, may be just what a weary electorate needs.\u00a0 After all, isn’t Congress even more reviled than President Obama?\u00a0 Who really cares if the people’s representatives\u00a0have a say in what policies are enacted?\u00a0 Just put it on auto pilot and everyone will be happy.\u00a0 Better yet, why have any elections at all?\u00a0 Perhaps only half-joking, Democratic Governor Bev\u00a0Perdue, of North Carolina, suggested forgoing the Congressional elections in 2012<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and\u00a0 just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to\u00a0 just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree\u00a0 with me on that.\u00a0 You want people who don’t worry about the next\u00a0 election.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s only one tiny problem with Gov. Perdue’s\u00a0solution:\u00a0\u00a0it violates the United States\u00a0Constitution.\u00a0 I’ll give the Governor the benefit of the doubt that she was using hyperbole to get her point across, but in a world where many countries do not have free and fair elections for their people — much less letting women vote — you might think that American politicians and government leaders would be more careful in joking about suspending elections.<\/p>\n

However, elites at all levels of government — national, state, and local — as well as elites within\u00a0the fields of business, entertainment, industry, and even religion,\u00a0often exhibit disdain (open or otherwise) for democracy.\u00a0 Like both\u00a0former OMB Director Orszag and Gov. Perdue, many elites\u00a0would like nothing better than to\u00a0jettison democratic ideals and values in an effort to quickly solve a problem or to pass their own agenda.\u00a0\u00a0The problem with that approach is that a bigger problem is created when the\u00a0democratic rights of the people are trampled on by those who are in power.\u00a0 Speaking at the Reagan Presidential\u00a0Library on Tuesday night, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie reminded the American people why we should care about our precious democratic ideals:<\/p>\n

We should care because we believe, as President Reagan did, that democracy is the best protector of human dignity and freedom.\u00a0 And we know this because history shows that mature democracies are less likely to resort to force against their own people or their neighbors. (text of full speech here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As of now, Gov. Christie says he is not running for President in 2012.\u00a0 That’s too bad because we need someone like Chris Christie in the White House.\u00a0 Truth be told, he’s one Yankee that this southern boy could support.\u00a0 And, despite what others might think, the name of his state wouldn’t prevent me from voting for him.\u00a0 Go figure!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic. (“Too…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,22,34],"tags":[1392,1388,300,1391,1390,345,1363,1396,1395,1394,1393,800,1389,853,1397],"class_list":["post-2717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedoms","category-government","category-politics","tag-bev-perdue","tag-chris-christie","tag-democracy","tag-democratic-ideals","tag-democratic-values","tag-elites","tag-name-change","tag-new-jersey","tag-obama-administration","tag-office-of-management-and-budget","tag-peter-orszag","tag-president-barack-obama","tag-reagan-presidential-library","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-united-states-consititution"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-HP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2717"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2724,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions\/2724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}